City Street Grille's Rolled Gold

This past weekend's food truck fete at Earth Day Dallas had a clear winner in creativity and popularity, the chicken and waffle dish offered by City Street Grille. The new menu item, Rolled Gold, exclusively revealed to City of Ate last week was presented as a waffle pita -- or cone -- if you will, in which are nestled strips of fried chicken drizzled with a earthy gravy punctuated with barely cracked black pepper.

The delicate, buttery cone of waffle bubbles is enjoyable by hand thanks to being wrapped in brown paper, although a fork is offered. Don't resist the temptation to break off a pod of the soft waffle to sample solo. At the end, a blast of pepper high dives down your throat, just to remind you that you ate something no other truck offers, something special, something that could have been a disaster, but had you at the edge of your gustatory seat. It's the most original food-truck item in town. That honor could only be contested if the Messy Cheesy Food Truck, based out of Fort Worth, and its mac and cheese grilled cheese sandwich had a permanent presence in Dallas.

Hunter Johnson and Jessica Smith, City Street Grille's owners who successfully navigated the quagmire that is the Dallas health code and began operations last year, told me that they sold out of the Rolled Gold on Friday. A repeat performance occurred on Saturday evening. They announced via Twitter that the festival's second day was a banner one for business as well.

The City Street Grille food truck serves lunch in the Design District, while dinner is available hither and thither. Catering, a food truck's bread and butter, is also offered. If the city council does indeed vote to alter the regulations, opening up Lower Greenville and the Arts District to food trucks, that perhaps will give Johnson and Smith a run for their money, but not when it comes to the Rolled Gold (as long as the Messy Cheesy Food Truck doesn't park its wheels in Big D)